Gaza’s latest mortality figures show its population grew by more than 1% in 2025, even as the United Nations and groups hostile to Israel promoted allegations of genocide and famine. The data came from the Hamas controlled Ministry of Health.
The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council analyzed those figures and found Gaza’s population increased by 1.2% in 2025. The organization described [1] that growth as difficult to reconcile with claims that Israel was committing genocide against the population.
The council also found that nonviolent deaths in Gaza during 2025 were lower than in 2022, before the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror spree ignited the war. Nonviolent deaths refer to fatalities unrelated to direct fighting.
According to the analysis, the mortality figures “absolutely rule out” the U.N. affiliated Integrated Food Security Phase Classification’s 2025 claim that major areas of Gaza faced a “worst-case scenario of famine.” The Washington Free Beacon previously reported that the IPC used a less reliable reporting metric before declaring famine.
“The most notable element of the recent all-cause mortality report for 2025 in Gaza … is the lack of the term ‘genocide’ anywhere in the report, and the fact that the numbers contained in it seem to completely contradict claims by the United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification in August 2025 that, at that time, major parts of Gaza were experiencing category 5 ‘famine’ conditions,” the council concluded.
The ministry’s figures also challenge the widespread assertion that women and children represented 70% of Gaza casualties. The council found that, “as is the norm in warfare, most casualties are military-aged males.”
At the same time, the council cautioned that the Hamas controlled ministry has historically produced unreliable and skewed data. Its analysis argued that claims contradicted even by Hamas’s own numbers should expose those making them as extreme or cavalier about accuracy.
The ministry reported 24,650 total deaths during 2025. Men accounted for 18,085 deaths, or 73.4%, while females accounted for 6,565 deaths, or 26.6%.
Around 18,870 people were killed violently, including in battle, suggesting that 76.6% of those killed were likely battlefield combatants. The figures also listed 17,286 deaths, or 70.1%, as resulting from “direct targeting” by Israel.
Only 5,780 deaths were classified as “non-violent” or “indirect deaths.” The council said those figures undercut accusations that Israel was wantonly killing Gaza’s civilian population.
Gaza Ministry of Health has now released mortality numbers for 2025. For the first time since the war, they give numbers for all deaths, including natural deaths.
In 2025 there were a total of 24,650 deaths in Gaza. 18,870 (76.6%) of these were violent, of which 17,286 (70.1%) were due to “war operations” and 1,584 (6.4%) were classified as accidents. There were a total of 5,780 (23.4%) non-violent deaths, including disease, old age, and all other causes.
5,780 deaths is about the same as the annual non-violent mortality in Gaza before the war, and the age distribution is similar to 2022. There is no significant excess of non-violent deaths.
In other words, despite frequent and loud claims to the contrary, there seems to be very few indirect deaths due to the war in Gaza in 2025.
As there were 50,227 births in 2025, this gives a natural population growth of 25,577 or 1.2% in Gaza in 2025, which is higher population growth than most countries in the world and more than the world average.
There are currently ~6,000 births/month in Gaza, per GMH. Assuming a similar number of non-violent deaths in Gaza in 2026 as in 2025, that means there are currently 12x more births than deaths in Gaza, and that Gaza is now experiencing one of the highest population growths in the world.
— Eirik Schrøder-Bråtane (@EirikSchr) September 30, 2026 [2]
More than 75 military professionals recently signed an open letter rejecting the genocide allegation. They wrote that the accusations “do not meet the established definition and standards of genocide, are unsupported by established facts, nor do they stand up to common sense scrutiny.”
The report stated, “Gaza in 2025 experienced natural population growth of 25,577, 1.2% of the population.” At least one analyst said that represented higher population growth than most countries and exceeded the world average.
The council also noted that populations are not expected to grow rapidly during genocides. It cited the Genocide Convention’s reference to “Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group,” before stating that Israel was clearly not doing so.
In 2022, Gaza recorded 6,061 deaths, a figure elevated by the COVID pandemic. The council said 2025 deaths potentially linked to starvation or malnutrition were not significantly higher than natural deaths in 2022, while figures from 2019 were only slightly lower.
The IPC standard would have required at least 8,600 indirect deaths during the supposed famine period, according to the analysis. Gaza’s ministry recorded only 5,780 nonviolent deaths throughout all of 2025, leading the council to conclude that death totals remained far below IPC famine thresholds.
Middle East analyst Gabriel Epstein found 0.43 nonviolent deaths for every direct death through the end of September. The study also said Hamas’s published data showed a growing overrepresentation of military age males since early 2024, contradicting claims that women and children represented 70% of casualties.